
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990                   TAG: 9006260400
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AID TO ECONOMY A CLEANER ENVIRONMENT PAYS OFF

SOME DAYS at the White House the environment's up, some days it's down. Lately it's been up. The Bush administration has ended its opposition to creating a $100 million international fund to help developing countries stop use of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer. And the president's Council on Environmental Quality says the nation can have both economic growth and less pollution.

The concession on that international fund marks a backdown by White House Chief of Staff John Sununu. Echoing the stance of the Reagan administration, he has led resistance within the administration to many environmental initiatives. They are costly both to government and to business, Sununu contends, and they subtract from economic output.

It doesn't have to be that way, comes the reminder from the Council on Environmental Quality. This group - created in 1970 by the National Environmental Policy Act - issued a report a few days ago declaring that "a growing economy and a clean environment go hand in hand."

Statistics bear out the claim. In the past 20 years, America has made major reductions in air and water pollution, and has begun tackling the problems of toxic-waste disposal. Meantime, U.S. population has grown by 22 percent, the economy by 75 percent.

In the private sector, pollution abatement has become big business; hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created in a sector that didn't exist two decades ago. The air-pollution-control industry alone is expected to ring up $48 billion in sales in 1990.

Nor is this a zero-sum game. Growth in pollution abatement doesn't necessarily mean a loss of growth elsewhere. Industries learn to use fuels more efficiently. They find better processes and different raw materials or catalysts. Sometimes they even discover uses for what they were discarding.

Just as important, they become better citizens, and their actions contribute to better health and a better quality of life for others. A healthy environment fosters greater productivity in the work place. Sure, it can be expensive to control pollution. But disposing of wastes by simply discharging them into the air or water, or by dumping them on land, also exacts a cost.

The rest of society pays that. So does the damaged environment, on which we all depend for sustenance. It's well that pollution abatement itself can be good business. But it needn't be in order to make the world a better place for everyone to live.

by CNB